It is time for people in Washington to acknowledge it is impossible to get a truly simplified tax code in this current political climate. It is simply inconsistent with the other driving ideological preferences in Washington, which includes the idea of very low federal “spending”, low taxes, and a Congress that plays an active role [...]

President Obama’s proposed switch to chained-CPI is primarily a Social Security benefit cut and a middle class tax increase. Most importantly, it also an elaborate con. It is a con on the American people that Obama feels the media will allow and/or help him pull off. It is not a technical improvement. I’ve heard very [...]

If it wasn’t already abundantly clear there is now more proof President Obama really really really wants to cut Social Security benefits for current retirees. Obama will include the chained-CPI, which is a yearly and continuously growing cut to your Social Security benefits, in his budget. From Politico: President Barack Obama will make another run [...]

Republicans have managed to whip themselves into a frenzy about the failure of Senate Democrats to pass a “budget” in over four years. What seems to be lost in this discussion, though, is the fact that the normalization of the filibuster has effectively eliminated any reason for a Senate majority to adopt a budget. It [...]

House Republicans are about to fold on the debt limit. They are no longer going to demand that any increase in the limit be matched with spending cuts. But because nothing in Congress can be simple and easy, the House Republicans are going to wrap up the debt ceiling in a convoluted face saving measure. [...]

The Obama administration officially released its budget for fiscal year 2013 yesterday. As much as I like writing about policy, I frankly lack any desire to write about the substance of this budget proposal. The simple fact is that the President’s budget is basically a long, vaguely political document that is effectively meaningless. After a [...]

The Obama administration’s new budget for fiscal year 2013 (begins October 2012) is apparently going to be so bad they have decided to start warning some liberals ahead of time. From The Hill: Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal. [...] “A senior White [...]

When deciding how to move forward with our roughly $100 billion a year war in Afghanistan, President Obama apparently didn’t even take into consideration the issue of cost at least according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Apparently the position of our government that when it comes to saving the lives of regular Americans it will only be done if it can done on a tight budget but when it comes to killing foreign people cost is no obj

Americans oppose any cuts to the country’s largest social safety net programs in order to reduce the federal deficit according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll (PDF). Two-thirds of Americans want no reductions in Social Security, 59 percent want no cuts to Medicare, and 53 percent want no reductions in Medicaid spending. On the [...]

When basically the entire House Republican caucus voted for Paul Ryan’s budget, which includes a “plan” to destroy the very popular Medicare program and replace it with insufficient private vouchers, I couldn’t tell if they made such a terrible political move because they were so trapped in their own ideological bubble that they actually thought [...]